THE COLD WAR

THE DETAILS BEHIND IT ALL

THE COLD WAR

THE DETAILS BEHIND IT ALL

What was the Cold War?

-a state of political and military tension after WWII between powers in the Western Bloc (the U.S., NATO, etc.) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states)

-Western bloc wanted to prevent communism from spreading whereas the Eastern Bloc wanted their communist government to spread to all other nations around the world

-Western Bloc led by U.S. and Eastern Bloc led By Soviet Union

-mostly non-violent war but their main conflict was the influence of their preferred style of government on other nations, especially vulnerable and newly-independent ones

-it started in 1945 when there were only two major powers (U.S. and the Soviet Union) left standing and each very different ideas on government and even the use of nuclear weapons

United States

VS

The Soviet Union

United States

VS

The Soviet Union

Containment

-U.S. policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad

-a component of the Cold War; was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam

"Iron Curtain"

-political, military, and the ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after WWII

-its intention was to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas

Truman Doctrine

-the principle that the U.S. should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or communist interaction

-first expressed in 1947 by President Truman in the speech to Congress seeking aid for Greece and Turkey

-communists saw the doctrine as an open declaration of the Cold War

Marshall Plan

-an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the U.S. gave over 12 billion dollars in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of WWII

-named after Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University in 1947

Berlin Airlift

-on a day in 1948, the U.S. and British pilots began delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade

-this could be called the first battle of the Cold War

-the Soviets initially believed that the blockade would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France, and the U.S. out of the city for good

NATO

-the North Atlantic Treat Organization

-military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after WWII to strengthen international ties between member states

-also served as counterbalance to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact